


Two Steps

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Co-workers, Dancing, F/M, Getting Together, HP: EWE, POV Pansy Parkinson, Post-Canon, Professor Harry Potter, Professor Pansy Parkinson, Professors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24719842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: “Rumor has it you’re a great dancer.”Laughing, Harry says, “I haven’t danced since the Yule ball in fourth year.”“That was a terrible dance,” Pansy reminisces fondly. “You should try again now.”
Relationships: Pansy Parkinson/Harry Potter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 158
Collections: Rare Pair Shorts - Summer Wishlist Event 2020





	Two Steps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> Harry Potter [rarepair_shorts](https://rarepair-shorts.dreamwidth.org/) Summer Wishlist Event gift for flipflop_diva. I hope you enjoy this fic!

Professors aren’t expected to bring dates. It’s not that kind of event, which means it’s endlessly boring.

Pansy sighs as she watches over the food and drinks table at the far end of the Great Hall. Only hours ago, it had been the Slytherin table, but now it is unrecognizable with a glittery blue tablecloth that matches the starry ceiling above. There is only one more hour to go and Pansy has been waiting for the end of the night with anticipation. In an hour, she can return to her rooms, and not see a single student for at least twelve hours.

“Hands off the punch, Flint,” she tells the younger cousin of one of her old schoolmates. There is no heat in her tone. She hasn’t quite managed the acidity of the school’s most memorable Potions professor, but she has managed utter boredom.

“I wasn’t doing anything!” Matthew grumbles, tucking something back into his sleeve. He turns to her with a expression that probably isn’t meant to look so pouty. “Professor, you’ve been looking after the drinks all night. Are you sure you don’t want to dance?”

Pansy just barely manages not to roll her eyes. She has an image to maintain. “Nice try.”

“I heard Professor Potter is a great dancer.”

Pansy raises an eyebrow. “I heard you melted your cauldron last week brewing a potion in one of the spare classrooms.”

Not unsurprisingly, Matthew is nowhere to be found within seconds. Pansy leans back against the wall. It had only been slightly illegal and nothing actively harmful, so she doesn’t begrudge the kid for making some extra galleons. Merlin knew that half of Hogwarts seemed to have brewed something strange on the side by their final year at school. Pansy considers it a credit to her teaching skills, that anyone is brewing for fun and profit at all. Back when she studied under Professor Snape, she’d been so worried about him snapping at her that she hadn’t picked up her cauldron except during class. It was only after Hogwarts that she’d developed her interest in the subject.

Returning to Hogwarts as a professor had been a calculated decision. She would be able to return the subject to its former glory and have an excellent reference for her resume after quitting in a few years. And, perhaps just a little bit, it is a form of penance for treating the school badly once upon a time. Pansy has never boasted of a well-developed sense of empathy, but perhaps there was a small green sprout there all the same, grown in the fertile land of post-Voldemort Britain. It was rather irritating to realize that she liked peace and quiet over the chaos and terror of war, but it was what it was.

Besides, had Voldemort won, he would have left her without eye candy in the form of her fellow professor Harry Potter. It would have been a travesty to not have encountered him without a beard.

“You look surprisingly presentable, Harry,” Pansy says as Harry makes his rounds in her direction. As one of the other professors chaperoning the dance, he’d chosen to watch the dance floor instead, making sure that none of the students got too rowdy or too handsy. Pansy had enjoyed the view from the other end of the hall.

“Thanks, I think,” Harry replies, coming to a stand next to her. “What do you think of the dance?”

“I think we shouldn’t bow to students’ petitions. First it’s a dance, next it will be a traveling zoo visiting the school,” Pansy huffs.

Harry looks entirely too thoughtful at the idea, but in the end he says, “Minerva would never agree.”

“It’s already a zoo here,” Pansy says. She eyes a group of boys approaching the table, but it seems their intentions are innocent. “Rumor has it you’re a great dancer.”

Laughing, Harry says, “I haven’t danced since the Yule ball in fourth year.”

“That was a terrible dance,” Pansy reminisces fondly. “You should try again now.”

Harry shakes his head. “Two left feet. I can’t give the students more reasons to make fun of me. It’s like they don’t appreciate me for my excellent Defense curriculum. They should have seen what we had to put up with in school. Then they’d realize my strengths.”

“I don’t know, Professor Crouch-Moody was a good professor. I learned all three Unforgivables from him.”

“On my last first year exam, I only had two students who knew what the Imperius Curse was,” Harry remarks. He sounds happy.

Despite herself, Pansy is too. Softer than she means to, she says, “It’s the way it should be.” She pushes herself off the wall and holds out a hand to Harry. It must be the warmth of the Great Hall or the stars in the ceiling above or that silly look in Harry’s eyes that makes her say, “I bet you could dance better with a good partner. I had lessons all throughout childhood. I won’t let you down, although I might kick you if you crush my toes.”

She’s nervous only for a moment because Harry doesn’t hesitate to take her hand.

“Are there steps to the dance?”

“Just two,” Pansy says, deciding to go easy on him.

At Hogwarts, it’s so easy to lose herself in research and instruction and grading, to forget the parts of her that don’t answer to Professor Parkinson. Some of it is for the best. She’s learned more patience and kindness in her time here than she would have ever expected, surrounded by students who are at once brats and innocents. But around Harry, Pansy wants more, and as they grow closer and closer as they dance, she realizes that she might not be the only one. It’s a short first dance, for they both have duties to attend to, but it’s the closest she has ever been to him. Pansy isn’t ready to let go.

At the end of the night, Harry joins her in walking the Slytherin students back to the dungeons, and Pansy turns to him once they are all tucked away behind the common room entrance. “Will you walk me to my door?”

Harry smiles. “If you want me to.”

Pansy takes his arm and leads the way.

To her door, then through.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also on [Tumblr](https://wynnefic.tumblr.com/).


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